Health

Is the graphic of "Parental Child Homicides by Gender of Perpetrator" based on a real 2016 paper by Ribaux, L., et al.? No, that's not true: No such article appeared in the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, as cited in the graphic. The issue's table of contents contains no article by an author with the last name Ribaux, nor is…

Is a video showing Celine Dion confessing to drinking the blood of children real? No, that's not true: The altered clip posted on social media uses footage from a documentary that shows Dion having a seizure and recovering. She does not say that she ate children or drank their blood in the original video. The claim appeared in an Aug.…

Do studies show an 81% or 82% miscarriage rate in pregnant women vaccinated against COVID-19 in the first trimester? No, that's not true: The numbers are a long-running misrepresentation of early safety data on how mRNA COVID-19 vaccines affected pregnant people. The 81% and 82% figures come from miscalculating percentages from early, incomplete data -- no study actually found those…

Was a man named "François Faivre", the supposed surgeon who "announced Brigitte Macron's transgender transformation," found dead in Paris in June 2026? No, that's not true: Lead Stories searched the French national registry of the deceased but found no exact matches. The claim came from a video showing AI-generated people that has resurfaced on the internet multiple times since 2025.…

Did a new "Christian men's gym" in Georgia that bans women so pious men can have "lust-free workouts" have three men caught "violating Leviticus in the locker room" just six days after opening? No, that's not true: The claim appeared from an X account that is labeled "halfway true comedy and satire." Lead Stories found no credible news reports of…

Is Nate Ward, who confronted Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser over the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, dead? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found Ward alive and still living in the District's eighth ward. "Nate Ward is not deceased, because you're speaking to him right now,"…

Did the State of Minnesota announce it will bring "transgender dolls" to public school classrooms as early as fall 2026? No, that's not true: The state's Department of Education denied that. The dolls are a project of University of Minnesota, and, according to the statement of the academics behind it, are meant to be a "therapeutic tool for use by…

Did U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. say, "Infertility is genetic. If your parents couldn't have kids, then you won't either"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that Kennedy ever made this statement, either seriously or as a joke. Variations of this phrase circulated as a joke online for nearly four years before…

Did Trump go "apocalyptically angry" over people dubbing the 2026 cyclosporiasis outbreak "Trumporrhea"? No, that's not true: No credible news outlets reported that. The rumor originated from a self-described satire account that claimed it "improved" facts. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published by @LucasSa56947288 on July 13, 2026. It read: 🚨JUST IN:…

Is a review of an unpublished draft study a statistically valid analysis comparing chronic disease outcomes in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children? No, that's not true: The analysis is based on a 2020 draft study that was never published because an internal review identified "serious flaws in the data and methodology," according to Michigan-based Henry Ford Health System. Public health and…

Does a video of doctors and nurses in masks and protective gear show medical professionals treating a hantavirus patient during the 2026 outbreak? No, that's not true: The video is from 2020 and shows doctors and nurses in Italy treating a patient with COVID-19. The video does not depict a patient with hantavirus in May 2026. The claim appeared in…

Was Jake Rosmarin, the hantavirus cruise ship influencer, the same COVID-19 patient featured in a 2022 BBC report? No, that claim is false: The BBC segment focused on another individual, Henry Dyne, who, during the pandemic, was falsely accused of being a "crisis actor" pretending to have COVID-19. No credible evidence supports the claim that Dyne and Rosmarin are the…

Does a document show hantavirus as a side effect of COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: The document shows a government-required adverse event (AE) report prepared by pharmaceutical companies. It is not a list of side effects proven to be caused by or associated with the vaccine but a broad list of health conditions that researchers want to look out…

Did X user @iamasoothsayer write in 2022, "2026: Hantavirus"? Yes, that's true: The original post, from June 2022, read, "2023: Corona ended" and "2026: Hantavirus." A copy of the post was archived by The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine in 2022. X's user documentation does not currently list a way for users to retroactively edit the publication date or time of…

Is King Charles "dying of Kuru," (a rare disease linked to cannibalism), after decades of "child meat banquets"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the king has been diagnosed with Kuru as of the time of publication. He has announced he was diagnosed with cancer. The viral video making this claim does not cite any sources or…

Is a paper by Dr. Drew Pinsky, Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Harvey Risch, and nine others claiming that ivermectin and mebendazole improve cancer outcomes in 84.4% of cases a proper medical study? No, that's not true: Research experts told Lead Stories that the paper relies on an uncontrolled, self-reported survey with major bias, no independent verification of diagnoses or outcomes,…

Does a real unmanipulated video show Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying "conspiracy theorists were right" and the COVID-19 vaccine maybe causes "gayness" and calling Anthony Fauci a "goblin"? No, that's not true: The audio in the video has been altered. An un-altered original video of RFK Jr. originally making the speech shows that he never claims the vaccine causes those…

Were Dalton Knecht, Clayton Kershaw, Andre Iguodala and many other sports celebrities and their associates fatally shot, "while tryiпg to break υp a bar fight"? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning them and other people were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. There were no credible news articles about such events. The Knecht version…

Was a video about "Malcom tongue condoms" a real ad for a real product? No, that's not true: As of this writing, there was no such product available in the U.S. The clip, first uploaded by a digital creator, was generated by AI. The claim appeared in a post (archived here and here) published on March 17, 2026. It opened:…

Does a mid-twentieth-century photograph capture the consequences of a transorbital lobotomy performed on a man named "James Peterson" for being gay in 1948? No, that's not true: The image is not a photograph -- it's an image generated by the AI tool Grok, as a barely visible watermark in the bottom right corner indicated. The content of the picture contradicts…